Saturday, August 02, 2003
Double Whammy
Wishes
I have my father's face. That's what most people who knew him would never fail to mention. I wouldn't know if that was true. I derived my limited memories of him on a 10inch-by-14inch framed photograph. A photograph which was not even an original since my Lola only commissioned someone to paint it from an ID picture of his. All other memories were gone as if they wanted to purge all the things that remind them of him. Not that they didn't love him. Of course they did, they still do. Maybe they just wanted to move on; and moving on wouldn't be easy if there are lots of things that will remind them of him. I should be thankful. They kept the picture.
I have always asked who the man in the picture was when I was a child. And I remember almost everyone will answer me, "That's your father." Then most often than not, it would be followed by countless questions: "Where is he?" "Why did he leave?" "When is he coming back?" Questions they had been answering but still, the answers just seem to elude me. He will never come back. That's the bitter pill I had to swallow. But swallow I did not.
Yes. I am still in denial. I just can't seem to accept the fact that he was long gone. Long before I could even learn how to walk. Sometimes I still feel that something inside me is missing. That something is forever lost. I felt deprived.
I have always envied kids who have someone to call Dad or whatever, simply because I don't have someone to call mine. All I have was a photograph. A nameless face had it not been for the people who introduced me to it. But what is a photograph? A photograph can't take you to the movies. It can't buy you toys. Neither can it play with you. But these are just things any kid could do without. I wanted more than these. I wanted someone to be there when I was sick. Someone to hold on to when I was down. Someone to guide me when I'm confused and comfort me when I'm afraid. I want a father. I remember I even asked my friends how it is to have one. Such a pathetic question to some. Not to me. I want answers. Sure I got them. But the sympathetic looks that came with it gave me more than the answers I was longing for. Even though how many times they would answer, I would never have a chance to know how or what it is. I should be contented on my what-ifs, my maybes and my wishes.
They say if you would make a wish on a shooting star, your wish would come true. The stars could all fall down from the sky, for all I care, but still, I wouldn't know the difference.
Seventeen
I died when I was six.
But my body still lies in state for nearly seventeen years. It still does; inside of me, away from the prying eyes of other people; lurking in the darkest, coldest part of my memory. For seventeen long years my body has kept its silence, while occasionally wreaking havoc on my psyche. It seems he doesn't want to be left forgotten. I know I should have a long time ago, but I just don’t know how to. Perhaps, I never will.
Nobody knows about it. I didn’t tell anyone of what happened to my body. I was afraid. I was afraid that nobody will listen, that nobody would care. I don’t think they’ll understand. Until, recently I had the courage to tell a few people about it. Even so, I was still hesitant.
My body was once a breathing flesh: alive, youthful, mortal. When he was still alive, I remember my body telling he wanted to be an architect. He wanted to build lots and lots of houses of various shapes and sizes but unlike any other house, his will never be shaken by any earthquake nor be blown off by any storm. He wanted them to be special. As special as the smile that beams from his soft, childish lips the day he got his first pair of shoes. That was seventeen years ago.
I still bring my body to sleep, oftentimes while singing the same sweet lullaby that mother used to sing to me when I was his age. And each time I sing that lullaby to him, my body lets out a familiar cry, but what puzzles me is that not a single sound ever escapes from his now-withered lips. I have always wished that he’d stop crying but he just kept on; until the last drop of tear wells from his eyes. Tired, he would creep back in his place, silently, never leaving a hint of his existence. There he would spend most of his time wallowing in self-pity, brewing the same anger and angst that have been pestering him.
Last night, a very bizarre incident happened. As expected, my body paid me a visit, as he usually does this past few weeks. I noticed my body was half as thin as he used to be. My body never reached that record size, save for one incident when he was forced to remember the cause of his death. Alarmed, I confronted my body about this but did not expect to get any concrete answer. He was, as always, wearing that same catatonic expression when he answered me. He told me that an invader had been sneaking inside his nook and keeps on bugging him. The invader has returned. And he, my body, was once again, afraid. Very afraid. From his story, I realized the invader was the same person that caused his death, the very person that stabbed him, not once, not thrice…I can’t even remember the exact number. Nor the exact details of how he really died. I just know that he died. Seventeen years ago.
It happened one night. Which particular night is not important; they were all the same. He was standing in front of the half-opened door of the bedroom upstairs; how he got there, he can’t remember. When suddenly two pairs of big, strong hands grabbed him from the inside. It was creepy inside the room but the owner of the pair of hands didn’t seem to mind. However, what’s creepier is the way the pair of hands had grown a pair of red, blazing pair of eyes. As the eyes grew redder and redder, the pair of hands started to travel the contours of his fragile body. My body trembled in anticipation of something that’s beyond his comprehension. He didn’t know what was going to happen.. He was starting to feel the hunger that the pair of hands felt. A hunger so insatiable that it can eat a whole body in one sitting. But the pair of hands is not hungry for just anything. Somehow my body knew what the pair of hands was hungry for. He didn’t know exactly what it was. He just knew that whatever it was, it was certainly not what he wanted He was afraid. That was the only thing he knew. He tried to reach for the door. He wanted to escape. But all hopes were nowhere to be found, for the pair of hands had started to anchor its weight on his waist. Pulling closer. Trying to reach for something. Closer. The next minutes was agonizingly long. He always wished that the hands of the clock will be just as lazy as he was during the morning, when he doesn’t want to leave the comforts of his bed. But it seemed the clock’s hands have stopped running. They, too, were afraid. They, too, were trembling as the room shaked. They, too, felt the tremor. They, too, felt the excruciating pain. They, too, were sweating blood. They, too, cried. A cry as loud as the sirens of the passing firetrucks. Funny, for the cry never reached anyone’s ear. The walls muffled the cry even before it reached the surface; never to be echoed back. Maybe the walls, too, were afraid. That was the last cry that ever escaped from the lips of my body. That was the last cry that accompanied him before his descent six feet underground.
Seventeen years ago
... a slice of bob's life.
11:16 PM
Comments by: YACCS
